May 5, 1999
Staffer for Bernie Sanders resigns over Congressman's War Support
Jeremy Brecher Resigns From Bernie Sanders Staff
Jeremy Brecher was a policy analyst on the
staff of U.S. Congressman Bernie Sanders.
He resigned April 29, 1999.
May 4, 1999
Congressman Bernie Sanders
2202 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC, 20515
Dear Bernie,
This letter explains the matters of conscience that have led me to
resign from your staff.
I believe that every individual must have some limit to what acts
of military violence they are willing to participate in or support,
regardless of either personal welfare or claims that it will lead to a
greater good. Any individual who does not possess such a limit is
vulnerable to committing or condoning abhorrent acts without even
stopping to think about it.
Those who accept the necessity for such a limit do not necessarily
agree regarding where it should be drawn. For absolute pacifists, war
can never be justified. But even for non-pacifists, the criteria for
supporting the use of military violence must be extremely stringent
because the consequences are so great. Common sense dictates at least
the following as minimal criteria:
The evil to be remedied must be serious.
The genuine purpose of the action must be to avert the evil, not to
achieve some other purpose for which the evil serves as a pretext.
Less violent alternatives must be unavailable.
The violence used must have a high probability of in fact halting
the evil.
The violence used must be minimized.
Let us evaluate current U.S. military action in Yugoslavia against
each of these tests.
Evil to be remedied: We can agree that the evil to be remedied in
this case -- specifically, the uprooting and massacre of the Kosovo
Albanians -- is serious enough to justify military violence if such
violence can ever be justified. However, the U.S. air war against
Yugoslavia fails an ethical test on each of the other four criteria.
Purpose vs. pretext: The facts are incompatible with the hypothesis
that U.S. policy is motivated by humanitarian concern for the people of
Kosovo:
In the Dayton agreement, the U.S. gave Milosevic a free hand in
Kosovo in exchange for a settlement in Bosnia.
The U.S. has consistently opposed sending ground forces into
Kosovo, even as the destruction of the Kosovar people escalated. (While
I do not personally support such an action, it would, in sharp contrast
to current U.S. policy, provide at least some likelihood of halting the
attacks on the Kosovo Albanians.)
According to The New York Times (4/18/99), the U.S. began bombing
Yugoslavia with no consideration for the possible impact on the Albanian
people of Kosovo. This was not for want of warning. On March 5, 1999,
Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema met with President Clinton in the
Oval Office and warned him that an air attack which failed to subdue
Milosevic would result in 300,000 to 400,000 refugees passing into
Albania and then to Italy. Nonetheless, "No one planned for the tactic
of population expulsion that has been the currency of Balkan wars for
more than a century." (The New York Times, 4/18/99). If the goal of U.S.
policy was humanitarian, surely planning for the welfare of these
refugees would have been at least a modest concern.
Even now the attention paid to humanitarian aid to the Kosovo
refugees is totally inadequate, and is trivial compared to the billions
being spent to bomb Yugoslavia. According to the Washington Post
(4/30/99), the spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency in Macedonia
says, "We are on the brink of catastrophe." Surely a genuine
humanitarian concern for the Kosovars would be evidenced in massive
emergency airlifts and a few billion dollars right now devoted to aiding
the refugees.
While it has refused to send ground forces into Kosovo, the U.S.
has also opposed and continues to oppose all alternatives that would
provide immediate protection for the people of Kosovo by putting non- or
partially-NATO forces into Kosovo. Such proposals have been made by
Russia, by Milosevic himself, and by the delegations of the U.S.
Congress and the Russian Duma who met recently with yourself as a
participant. The refusal of the U.S. to endorse such proposals strongly
supports the hypothesis that the goal of U.S. policy is not to save the
Kosovars from ongoing destruction.
Less violent alternatives: On 4/27/99 I presented you with a memo
laying out an alternative approach to current Administration policy. It
stated, "The overriding objective of U.S. policy in Kosovo -- and of
people of good will -- must be to halt the destruction of the Albanian
people of Kosovo. . . The immediate goal of U.S. policy should be a
ceasefire which halts Serb attacks on Kosovo Albanians in exchange for a
halt in NATO bombing." It stated that to achieve this objective, the
United States should "propose an immediate ceasefire, to continue as
long as Serb attacks on Kosovo Albanians cease. . . Initiate an
immediate bombing pause. . . Convene the U.N. Security Council to
propose action under U.N. auspices to extend and maintain the ceasefire.
. . Assemble a peacekeeping force under U.N. authority to protect safe
havens for those threatened with ethnic cleansing." On 5/3/99 you
endorsed a very similar peace plan proposed by delegations from the US
Congress and the Russian Duma. You stated that "The goal now is to move
as quickly as possible toward a ceasefire and toward negotiations." In
short, there is a less violent alternative to the present U.S. air war
against Yugoslavia.
High probability of halting the evil: Current U.S. policy has
virtually no probability of halting the displacement and killing of the
Kosovo Albanians. As William Safire put it, "The war to make Kosovo safe
for Kosovars is a war without an entrance strategy. By its unwillingness
to enter Serbian territory to stop the killing at the start, NATO
conceded defeat. The bombing is simply intended to coerce the Serbian
leader to give up at the negotiating table all he has won on the killing
field. He won't." (The New York Times, 5/3/99) The massive bombing of
Yugoslavia is not a means of protecting the Kosovars but an alternative
to doing so.
Minimizing the consequences of violence. "Collateral damage" is
inevitable in bombing attacks on military targets. It must be weighed in
any moral evaluation of bombing. But in this case we are seeing not just
collateral damage but the deliberate selection of civilian targets,
including residential neighborhoods, auto factories, broadcasting
stations, and hydro-electric power plants. The New York Times
characterized the latter as "The attack on what clearly appeared to be a
civilian target." (5/3/99) If these are acceptable targets, are there
any targets that are unacceptable?
The House Resolution (S Con Res 21) of 4/29/99 which "authorizes
the president of the United States to conduct military air operations
and missile strikes in cooperation with the United States' NATO allies
against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" supports not only the
current air war but also its unlimited escalation. It thereby authorizes
the commission of war crimes, even of genocide. Indeed, the very day
after that vote, the Pentagon announced that it would begin "area
bombing," which the Washington Post (4/30/99) characterized as "dropping
unguided weapons from B-52 bombers in an imprecise technique that
resulted in large-scale civilian casualties in World War II and the
Vietnam War."
It was your vote in support of this resolution that precipitated my
decision that my conscience required me to resign from your staff.
I have tried to ask myself questions that I believe each of us must
ask ourselves: Is there a moral limit to the military violence you are
willing to participate in or support? Where does that limit lie? And
when that limit has been reached, what action will you take? My answers
led to my resignation.
Sincerely yours,
Jeremy Brecher
